Thursday, November 26, 2015

Welcome to yet another delicious Thanksgiving! A very special holiday full of swirling memories and
preparations, like so many colorful autumn leaves. It’s a celebration of
family and food and delightful traditions. And it can be a reminder
that our traditions are actually anything but traditional.

I
was rather young when I first learned that my family’s traditional
Thanksgiving dinner was not the universal norm. We dined on turkey and
stuffing, potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, cranberries, and pumpkin
pie. Normal enough. However, elsewhere in the colonies, specifically
Brooklyn, our Italian neighbors celebrated with their traditional
Thanksgiving lasagna and antipasto platter.

Later, my
wife and in-laws introduced me to the traditional Baltimore side dish
of sauerkraut. Curiously, the denizens of Charm City have somehow
failed to draw the logical connection between sauerkraut and hot dogs
at ball games, but that’s another story.

For the most
part, we imagine Thanksgiving as a timeless tableau, a generous feast
first celebrated by grateful Pilgrims and kind-spirited Native
Americans at the Plymouth Colony in 1641. And we generally envision an
assortment of foods similar to our “traditional” Thursday spread,
sauerkraut notwithstanding.

Alas, we are savoring
more of myth than reality. The first Thanksgiving observance actually
took place in Newfoundland, Canada, in 1578, almost 50 years before
Plymouth. And when the Separatists of Plymouth finally did celebrate
their “First Thanksgiving,” it was more likely held near the end of
July a couple years later.

Don’t worry, however, there
was undoubtedly a harvest celebration in 1621, and we can always
trace our tradition to that event. But don’t expect any mashed potatoes
or cranberry sauce.
Written accounts from the period indicate
that such feasts included venison, mussels, cod, and herring. What, no
turkey? It is possible that wild turkey (the game bird, not the
bourbon) was served, although duck, goose and crane were more likely.

Bad
news concerning sweet potatoes: Christopher Columbus may have brought
the colorful tuber back to Europe in the late 15th century, but in
1621 no one in New England was enjoying baked sweet potatoes drizzled
with maple syrup. Likewise for potatoes, the world’s favorite root
crop. Boiled, baked, or mashed, the noble spud would not appear on New
World tables for another 100 years or more. Fortunately, Native
Americans had introduced the settlers to pumpkins and to numerous
varieties of squash.

And while cranberry sauce may
not have been available, as sugar was not to be had, the Native
Americans would have had cranberries on hand. In fact, they often
mixed the berries into their traditional travel food, pemmican, sort
of a cross between beef jerky and granola bars. Moreover, it has been
suggested that Indians may have taught the colonists to tame the
tartness of the berry by boiling it along with maple syrup, which may
have been the inspiration for cranberry sauce itself.

The
colorful cranberry has almost as important a role in American
agriculture as it does on the dinner table. Cranberry, along with the
Concord grape and the blueberry, is one of the few native fruits
commercially grown.

The plant’s name is traced to
Crane-berry in the early 17th century, either because cranes were
noted gobbling their way through the cranberry bogs, or, more
colorfully, because the vine’s discrete pink flowers in spring
resemble the head and bill of a Sandhill crane, or the scarlet lores
(patch) above the crane’s eye.

Today, while
cranberries are grown throughout North America, nearly half the total
harvest originates in the bogs of Massachusetts. It seems to be a
tradition that lives on.

And while the lowly potato is
a relative newcomer to our traditional feast, its journey to our
table was as difficult and tenuous as airport, train, and highway
traffic the night before Thanksgiving.

Potatoes (Solanum tuberosum)
were brought back to the “Old Country” some 50 years after Columbus
made landfall. Like the tomato, it is another South and Central
American member of the Solanacaea or deadly “Nightshade” family. And,
like the tomato, potatoes were considered to contain aphrodisiac
properties, on the one hand, or cause leprosy -- which was also
associated with unbridled carnal activity. There are varied accounts
of potatoes returning to the new world in the Virginia colonies as
early as the 1630s, or to New England via Irish immigrants in the
early 18th century.

More recently, in developed
countries, 99 percent of all root crop production is in potatoes. And
why not? They are famously high in fiber, carbohydrates, and protein,
as well as vitamins B and C, and essential minerals such as magnesium,
zinc, iron, and copper.

For the most part, they are
relatively easy to grow, with hundreds of cultivars available, perfect
for raised beds or even containers and tubs. For the adventurous
gardener, russet or white potatoes might be all well and good, but
what about the dazzling array of heirloom varieties, ranging from
‘Yellow Finn’ and ‘German Yellow,’ to red-skinned ‘Pontiac’ and ‘Red
Norland,’ or even ‘All Blue’ and ‘Purple Peruvian?’ After all, what
could be more traditional than old-fashioned heirloom varieties?

Sweet
potatoes introduce another tradition: the annual confusion between
sweet potatoes and yams. For the record, the so-called “true yams” (Dioscorea spp.)
are actually of West African or Asian origin, and they are dry,
white, and quite starchy – unlike the sweeter, delectable flesh of
sweet potatoes with their deep yellow or reddish-orange tubers.

Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatus)
is related to bindweed or morning glory, as its fast-growing vines
will attest, and originated in Central or South America, possibly
Brazil, Peru, or Equador.

There are generally two
types of sweet potato, a dry-fleshed variety with white flesh, best
grown in colder climates (and far too yam-like for comfort), and the
moist-flesh or southern variety with which we’re happily familiar.
Interestingly, the majority of sweet potatoes are grown in China,
while it’s the second most important crop in Japan, where it is used
to produce starch, wine, and alcohol. At home, nearly 30 percent of
the sweet potatoes grown in the U.S. are cultivated in North Carolina,
which also goes a long way to explain the South’s fondness for sweet
potato, rather than pumpkin, pie.

Sweet potatoes can
be rather versatile in the home garden. They can be cultivated
normally, like potatoes, or even used as either an attractive ground
cover, or interspersed in hanging baskets with trailing flowers. No
promises, but the vines also infrequently produce pink flowers. In
addition, by way of warning, I once surprised myself to find about two
pounds of tubers growing in a hanging basket one fall season. I had
only planted the vines to provide a light green contrast to other,
darker foliage, little expecting a side dish.

You can
start your sweet potato plantation by simply buying “slips” from local
nurseries and garden centers, or through catalogs, for more unusual
cultivars. About 25 slips will suffice for a family of four. You can
also propagate your own from tubers which you or a neighbor have
successfully overwintered from the garden. Don’t try to use
store-bought tubers, as they are frequently treated with a compound
precisely to prevent sprouting. Set your sweet potato in a glass of
water, with one-third submerged. When the young sprouts are about six
inches long pull them off (don’t cut them) and set them in water or
moist sand until a dense mat of roots are formed. You can transplant
them outdoors a few weeks after the last threat of frost. And, by the
way, sprouting sweet potatoes is great fun for younger children. Many a
school windowsill is covered with vines every spring.

For
home composting devotees, note that sweet potatoes can be easily
grown in a modest-sized bin filled with shredded leaves from the
previous autumn. Be sure to keep the leaf mold moist for the first
several weeks while roots are developing. By the following fall, your
leaves will have mostly decomposed into a wonderful mulch, and your
tubers will have grown freely and exuberantly in their fluffy medium.

Overall,
sweet potato vines can grow up to four feet or more, although there
are several cultivars with compact growth habits and shorter vines,
which are ideally suited for barrels or patio containers, including
‘Bunch Porto Rico’ and ‘Vardaman.’

And while sweet potatoes are
an important part of our Thanksgiving tradition, they are gaining even
more status as an important source of nutrition, with fiber, vitamins
A and C, iron and calcium, antioxidants, and beta carotene. In fact,
one sweet potato provides half the recommended daily allowance of beta
carotene. It’s everything you need for a happy – and healthy –
holiday. Just watch out for those tiny marshmallows!

No comments:

Home Composting Essentials

LEED Platinum Home Tour

Join me as I visit the first LEED Platinum residence in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

The Energerium

Explore an educational resource that explores the interconnectedness of people, land, and the energy that runs through all living systems.

Home Energy Audit

Here's a quick overview of home energy audits and learn about the small repairs and fixes that can add up to big savings on your energy bill.

Crystal City: Going Green

Visit Crystal City in Arlington, Virginia, where green practices at the Farmer's Market range from CSA support to transportation, energy efficiency, waste reduction and innovative composting programs.

Rooftop Retreat

With containers, favorite furnishings, and the right plants, you can turn your rooftop terrace or balcony into a lovely green oasis. Above, just a small corner of the GreenMan's rooftop overlooking Arlington, Virginia and Washington, D.C. Click on the image to learn more about creating a penthouse paradise in "High-Rise Horticulture" (July 20, 2009).

Butterfly Gardens

You can invite these winged jewels home to share with your family - and add color to your landscape. Click on the image above to read "Creating a Butterfly Garden" (Aug. 3, 2009).

About the GreenMan

I have been an environmental program director and educator for the past 25 years. I am also a writer, editor, columnist, and publisher, sometime producer, and off-and-on radio and cable television host.

The GreenMan? Beyond my educational background in Medieval Studies, and my personal interest in the image and myth of the "Green Man," I’ve taken on the term as a colorful bit of “branding” for my televised GreenMan Show and my long-running GreenMan newspaper column, which inspired many of the posts you find here.